Electronic – How do integrated circuit design companies create their datasheets

datasheetdesignintegrated-circuitprocess

Especially for something like a microprocessor.

I assume the majority of information is "auto-generated" or we'd see a lot more typos and errors.

A laughable scenario keeps popping into my head where a handful of engineers pass around a word document, export it as a PDF and then manually apply bookmarks.

Are these companies big enough that they can afford to have departments that churn out custom software, databases, etc. to assist their design process?

I'm very curious because I'm finding it very hard to keep data/information/specifications uniform throughout the design process.

Maybe this question belongs in a different exchange?

Best Answer

I work for a large IC manufacturer and we do have a separate department that handles the generation of the published versions of datasheets. This department is in charge of making sure that the datasheet has proper English, uses the correct industry and company terminology, complies with the company's formatting standards, doesn't contain any text that would have bad legal implications for the company, etc. The document is XML-based.

Before that department gets involved, the engineer in charge of the product's specifications (usually called a "systems engineer" or similar) maintains the datasheet. The initial datasheet is usually based on a previous-generation product, so much of the information has already been generated. Throughout the development process, the systems engineer updates the specifications based on inputs from the other development engineers (all the development engineers can read the document from a central repository, but only the systems engineer can write to it). In the course of these updates, plenty of engineers get a chance to correct technical as well as spelling/grammatical errors (because they're reviewing the datasheet for their own work anyway). These engineers also provide the systems engineer with data to add to the datasheet (e.g. block diagrams, application circuit diagrams, scope captures, etc.). When it's time for release, the development engineers have a final review to make sure all the technical data is correct.

At this point, the publishing department gets involved. The publishing department has no idea whether or not the technical details are correct -- their purpose is to ensure the correctness of the formatting, spelling, etc. There's some back and forth between the publishing department and the systems engineer as both sides ensure the final draft is both technically correct as well as formatted correctly.

To summarize the main points:

  • Datasheets are based on the datasheets from previous-generation products (or at least similar products), so they aren't created completely from scratch.
  • All the engineers in the development team read and contribute to the datasheet, but actual editing of the datasheet is controlled by one engineer (the systems engineer).
  • The development team is responsible for ensuring the datasheet is technically accurate.
  • A separate department handles the formatting, terminology, etc.
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